[Note I have posted a new European Adventure Round-Up after my trips to Greece, Sweden and Denmark – see here] Well, I’m finally back. 20 days, 5 countries, 12 cities. It was pretty hectic, but also one of the best vacations of all time! I’ve also finally brought the Travel Diary up to date, and read more

When Horse Became Saw is a beautiful, gut-wrenching memoir from writer Anthony Macris about his family’s battle with autism. His son Alex was a seemingly healthy baby boy that suddenly and inexplicably (like so many autism sufferers) fell into a frightening and unstoppable regression at around 18 months. He stopped engaging with the world as read more

Every Superman movie comes with unreasonable expectations. We already saw how the 2006 Superman Returns directed by Bryan Singer and starring Brandon Routh (whatever happened to his career?) turned out when it tried to reboot the franchise with a more serious, thoughtful take on the Superman mythology. It wasn’t as bad as everyone said it read more

I knew it was not going to be good. Having put myself through the novel, my motivation for seeing Fifty Shades of Grey stemmed largely from my curiosity over how much a quality Hollywood production headed by director Sam Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass’s real-life wife) could salvage an adaptation of the third worst book I’ve ever read. read more

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Lately all I had been dreaming about was my writing assignments. However, the other night I had a most unusual dream that felt frighteningly real. I dreamed that I was living in a house very similar to the one I lived in as a young child. It had a big backyard, and somehow I was the owner of about 10 dogs, which all lived in a garage behind a 12-foot fence. Adjacent to it was a swimming pool area, which may or may not have had a lion living in it.

It was late at night and one of my dogs leapt over the fence right in front of me. I could tell it was desperate to tell me something. I followed it into the garage to see all the other dogs, whimpering and in concern over one of their mates, who seemed to be badly hurt and was dying. It was a Saturday or Sunday night, so I knew the vets wouldn’t be open, but I desperately needed to find an animal hospital (do they even have those?).

It then suddenly occurred to me that I had been neglecting these dogs for months (I don’t know why, but it felt so real), meaning I hadn’t fed them or anything, and they had just lived on their own. A sickening thought crossed my mind as I wondered how they had survived this whole time — perhaps they were eating their own shit, or worse, each other. And what about the poor lion? Should I check on him? Would he eat me?

I panicked as I flicked through the yellow pages, and it was around this time that I woke up in a cold sweat.

Isn’t it funny how dreams that seem so real when you’re in them instantly become silly when you wake up? I was trying to figure out what it all meant when I suddenly realised where the dream had come from. A few nights ago, I stumbled across an episode of Top Gear (for the first time), where these guys were riding through a safari with these little battery-powered cars. I remember thinking how terrifying it was as these massive lions ran alongside them and kept bumping into their extremely lightweight vehicles, threatening to tip them over.

And on the night of the dream, for some reason I watched this show called Bondi Vet (also for the first time), which featured this poor dog that was hit by a car and a snake in a suburban swimming pool.